Image copyrightSotheby'sImage caption
A Cricket Match will go on sale during the World Cup

A painting of children playing cricket by the artist LS Lowry is due to go on display before its auction, when it is expected to sell for about £800,000.

The rarely-seen oil painting, owned by art collectors Neil and Gina Smith, will go on sale at Sotheby's in London during the Cricket World Cup.

It set a world record for a Lowry work when it was last sold in 1996 for £282,000.

It will be displayed for five days from Thursday at Salford gallery The Lowry.

Simon Hucker, senior specialist in modern British art at Sotheby's, said: "This outstanding painting is in many ways a 'classic' Lowry - depicting the tough environment of the industrial cities of the north at the turn of the 20th Century - and yet the subject of children engaged in a game of cricket makes it quite unusual."

LS Lowry

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Laurence Stephen Lowry was one of Britain's most famous artists

Born near Manchester in 1887, LS Lowry is best known for his depictions of working class life, often distinctive for his use of "matchstick" figures

He studied art while working as a rent collector during the day

His initial drawings were made outdoors, on the spot, often on scraps of paper

After years of painting and exhibiting around Manchester, Lowry received his first one-man exhibition in London in 1939 and rose to national fame